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Earlier this week, Google removed 22 fraudulent apps from the Android Market that supposedly unknowingly charged users who downloaded them on their devices. These apps seemed harmless to many functioning as games or even just wallpaper apps.

Apparently, these forecasts and other apps have been ploys for criminals to lure consumers into clicking on options that led to premium charges tied to SMS usage.

As a follow up on a recent post, this post is to help all of you Android users to spot/notice if you have a trojan virus on your smartphone. Android malware is on the rise and it is now two times as likely to receive a virus in a app you download since six months ago. This is a quick list of ways to tell if your Android smartphone is infected.

Look up the developer – If there is no real logo, Google the developer’s name to see if they are a legitimate company.

Be wary of “knock off” games – Games are a typical “trap” that is used be malware creators. If the game is a free version of something that you normally would havle to pay for, be wary.

Examine app permissions – Every app in the marketplace has a list of admissions that you need to grant in order for the app to work properly. Read over this list and if you notice anything suspicious, don’t download it. (Ex: why would a game need to see your contact list).

Read reviews – This is an obvious way to see if the app is malware. If the particular app has more negative than positive reviews, be wary and read further to see what the negative reviews were about.

Watch Info – If while reading the app description and you notice that the creator doesn’t use good grammer/english or some information is left blank, that is a good sign to not download the app.

Follow this short list of things to check before downloading an app and your chances of catching some mobile malware will decrease significantly.

A new type of trojan virus for Android powered phones was discovered early today which has cause a scared considering how much more advanced the virus is compared to older viruses found on Android devices. This new trojan has the ability to record your conversation and then send it off to a remote server for storage for who knows what.

On the bright side, the virus is not capable of installing by itself, it needs the user’s permission first. This may sound dumb but it can be disguised as a game or some sort of app and when you choose to install it, you instead get a virus installed on your phone. The trojan looks to be a prototype of some sort so we may have more to fear in the future.

Anyways, be careful with what you download, make sure that it is something trustworthy and legitimate.

If you are worried about this then take a look at this article on 5 ways to protect your smartphone!

There are a couple Android anti-virus apps that you can download to protect your smartphone from this trojan and many others. Some of the many are by AVG, and Creative Apps (both called anti-virus free but of course the paid version will do a little more).